After watching us this week scrape past Ireland with a bunch of lads I have hardly heard of. It got me thinking about some of the batlers that have made the NZ one day side. I have put together what I believe to be the worst NZ ODI team ever.

 You could argue that I’ve got too many bowlers, but you can’t rely on anyone there to get through 8-10 overs, so I believe the bowlers are needed. A truly terrible watch.

Chris Nevin – Famous for walking out to the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme song. Nevin was an explosive domestic cricketer, but due to his dwarf like height, near on every ball was a bouncer. He got caught between deep square leg and deep fine leg NONE. An average of 20.22 from 33 matches gets him on the list.

Mark Richardson – Never made the jump into ODI cricket. One of the slowest between the wickets to ever don the black shirt. His strike rate of 40.3 is laughable. Played 4 matches and his highest score of 26 sent him packing.

Although this happened in the test format, it sums up his ODI stint

Michael Papps – A dirty bastard, who was not afraid to rock the clit tickler moves down to 3 in this team. He was a dynamic domestic batsman for Canterbury, but seemed to get injured everytime he took to the field for the national side. He managed to tick up a broken finger, dislocated shoulder and a shot to the head from Brett “Binger” Lee. Had a promising start but then fizzled out.

Richard Petrie –  Ugly to watch with both bat and ball with the stats to match. He later became and even worse watch in the commentary before getting the job as mental skills coach for the Wellington firebirds. He epitomises the term battler!

Tama Canning – Australian born Tama showed great promise in the domestic scene, breaking a couple of records for the Auckland Aces. This got him selected for the Black Caps where his 1-80 against Australia and his average of 17 with the bat wasn’t the returns NZ wanted from their all rounder. This sent him onto the Ricky Flutely aka the glass BBQ, which ultimately lead him to disciplinary actions and retirement from the game.

Andrew Penn – As his name suggests, Penn was a terribly boring watch on the cricket field. He somehow managed to get 5 matches for the BC’s, crawling to a high score of 15 and taking 1 wicket at an average of 200. Another batler to benefit from a domestically dominating CD team.

Glenn Sulzberger – Glenn looked more like a white supremacist than a cricket player. He had to give up medium pace due to a back injury and picked up off spin. He got selected as a genuine all rounder but returned a total of 9 runs and 3 wickets from his 4 matches.

Mark Priest – Popeye Priest managed to get 18 ODI’s under his belt, but was never able to capture his domestic form at the level above. He Averaged 10 with the bat and a batsman friendly 74 with the ball.

Michael Mason – Michael Mason earned his place in the New Zealand side the old fashioned way – by sheer hard work. To bad once he got there it was well over his head. He did have his moments in the team, a last ball victory against Sri Lanka, but more often than not, Mason battled. Hopefully his time in the team allowed him to lose his V plates.

Lance Hamilton – The left arm batler was a central districts main stay. He had the appearance of the local bouncer at the Grumpy Mole, and took 7 wickets against Aussie when they toured NZ and played Central Districts. His form was not recognised at international level however, living in the shadow of fellow lefties Geoff Allott , Shayne O’Connor and James Franklin.

Chris Drum – Made his debut in a washed out game against India, which pretty much summed up is tenure as a black cap. He looked more like a guy who gets restraining orders from play grounds, Drum played 5 ODIs, took 4 wickets at an average of 65.

12th man Carl Bulfin – Carl would captain the Lid 11, however haircuts aren’t an indicator of international cricketing ability. Bulfin was at one time considered to be the quickest bowler in the country, however his 3 matches returned zero wickets and allowed him to focus on his ska music career.